


The Heir Of...

by pristineungift



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Creepy, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Ethics, Explicit Language, F/M, Gen, Minor Character Death, Necrophilia, Non-Graphic Underage Sex, Psychological Horror, Psychopathology & Sociopathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 18:37:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pristineungift/pseuds/pristineungift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter's luck has run out. When he meets Voldemort in a graveyard during the Triwizard Tournament, he dies. But his body does not stay dead – instead it is reanimated, taken over by the Horcrux no one knew was inside. Written for WorshipDarkLord 2013, a Voldemortcentric Fic Exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heir Of...

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to laughing-mad for being a beta. 
> 
> I based Voldemort's attitude about Blood Status on Tom Riddle's comments in Chamber of Secrets that he no longer cares about killing Mudbloods because he essentially has bigger fish to fry. And let me say again, I write Voldemort as an out and out sociopath. This story is from his point of view. It is creepy. I do not pull punches. Think Dexter Morgan. Read at your own risk.
> 
> Special thanks: To my husband the neuroscientist, for his insights on sociopathy.

"I can  _touch_  you now," Voldemort says to Harry, before putting one long, grey finger to Harry's scar.

Pain boils down Harry's nerve endings, radiating outward in streams of molten fire. He screams, but cannot hear himself. His vision is blurred, obscured by tears and what might be blood.

He never sees the green flash of the Killing Curse.

**-l-**

Voldemort wakes to the sound of scales on stone. He feels … strange.

A familiar weight settles around his legs, and he opens his eyes and glimpses Nagini's coils as she winds herself around him in a protective embrace.

 _My sweet boy_ , she hisses to him, her tongue flicking against his ankle.

 _Boy?_  he asks in Parseltongue. He has not been a boy for many years.

Nagini lifts her head and looks at him, and Voldemort realizes that his vision is softly out of focus. It is not just the darkness of the room, as he initially thought.

He must be injured.

The last thing he remembers is going to kill the child of prophecy – that boy,  _Harry Potter_ , and the woman who wouldn't get out of the way… Severus will be upset at that. He wants that woman for himself.

Something happened, at that house in Godric's Hollow. There was the flash of the Killing Curse, and then the sound of that woman screaming, and then a series of confused images and half-dreams. Something about a cupboard under stairs, and then a hazy outline of Voldemort's old pet, the basilisk left for him by his ancestor, Salazar, and there was a graveyard…

The woman – the  _Mudblood_  woman, which gives the lie to all of the pretty words about blood purity he uses to control his followers – must have been more powerful than he thought. She cursed him, hurt him, but he cannot be destroyed.

He has gone to great lengths to master death.

Sitting up, he squints into the darkness. He is in some kind of mausoleum. So perhaps his confused flashes of memory after the initial encounter with Lily Potter are more than hallucinations. Perhaps his followers found and cared for him. Bellatrix, he knows, will not rest until she has claimed vengeance in his name. It is likely she who has secreted him away, to keep him safe until he is strong again.

She loves him dearly. Voldemort does not understand, cannot not grasp the fevered obsession, the passion he sees in her gaze whenever their eyes meet, but he finds it useful. He trusts Bellatrix as much as he will ever trust any other creature, save Nagini. Yes, if any of his Death Eaters have brought him here, it will surely be Bellatrix…

To show his gratitude, he will refrain from killing her for having the audacity to remove his wand from his person.

 _You are coming_ , Nagini interrupts his thoughts, her voice in his ear. He idly strokes her snout, taking in the size of his hands ( _too small_ ) and the tan of his skin ( _too dark_ ). Whatever curse has him in its grips, perhaps Nagini is affected as well. He taught her to speak sensibly long ago. He will not allow his companion to sound like a common house elf, no matter that he is the only one who can understand her.

The heavy stone door of the mausoleum slides to one side, and a cloaked figure enters. Though his vision is currently less than satisfactory, Voldemort can tell that the figure is too tall to be Bellatrix.

He grits his teeth, his missing wand putting a murderous edge on his expression. "Is that you, Severus?" he asks.

His voice comes out lower than it was when he was a youth, and yet higher than it should be.

Before he can process this latest development, the figure thrusts his hood back, and Voldemort comes face to face with… himself.

It is not himself as he has ever been, but a face that he might one day gaze upon in the mirror. The Dark Arts he employs to gain arcane powers, to explore elements of magic that have gone unknown since time began, have twisted this face. Voldemort does not find it ugly, but knows that there are those who will.

It is not important. His good looks and charming smile have only ever mattered to Voldemort as tools to further his ends. Though he is certainly younger than the version of himself that stands cloaked before him – a visitor from the future, he assumes – he is already beyond a point where charisma and a pretty face can accomplish more than power and magic.

"From what year have you traveled?" he asks his older self, eyes searching in vain for the telltale gold of a Time Turner.

He isn't certain, given the state of his eyesight, but he thinks his older self looks… bemused.

"You escaped the Killing Curse yet again," his Other says. "I must know how you keep doing it. It isn't the old earth magic… I've taken steps to negate your mother's power, Harry Potter."  
Voldemort's attention snaps like a bullwhip at the mention of that name, cold steely rage welling up at the remembered prophecy.  _Neither can live while the other survives._

Pain throbs through his forehead, and he raises his hand as casually as he can to rub the space between his eyes.

Scar-slick skin in the shape of a lightning bolt meets his questing fingers.

"I have never escaped the Killing Curse," he tells his older self. "Perhaps you have traveled back too far."

Were it not for Nagini's relaxed air, Voldemort would begin to think this man an imposter. But Nagini would warn him if it were so, and she sits entranced, her eyes somehow focused on both of them at once.

His older self grows angry, and Voldemort wonders if he looks like that when he loses his temper. The timbre of the voice is intimidating, the gestures powerful, dramatic, perhaps even majestic, yet still he vows to himself that he will make a greater effort to remain always in control. It is unseemly that any should see him this way.

More than that, it is dangerous.

He stands on gangly legs, only now noticing that he is wearing some sort of grubby uniform in Gryffindor colors, and does the simplest thing.

He locks eyes with his older self, and drops all the barricades on his mind.

The link of Legilimency is almost instantaneous.

In the space of a few seconds that feel like years – fourteen, to be exact – he knows what happened that night in Godric's Hollow. He knows what it is like to be a parasite, a ghost hopping from host to host, he knows what unicorn blood tastes like, he knows that he has spent months in hiding at his filthy Muggle father's old house, knows that he was nursed upon Nagini's venom by Wormtail of all people, he knows that Bellatrix is in Azkaban and that the world thinks him dead, and he knows what ritual it was that only recently restored his body to him.

He knows that two nights ago he faced the Boy Who Lived in a graveyard, and struck him down with the Killing Curse.

He knows that Harry Potter is dead, and that this body is his now.

He knows that he is a Horcrux, a piece of soul that was attached to the body of Harry Potter that night when his power shattered against the force of Lily Potter's inexplicable love for her son.  
With a sudden, burning, blinding clarity that he carefully occludes from his Other self, he knows that the prophecy was never about Harry Potter at all. It was always  _him_. Only he is great enough to defeat himself.

_Neither can live while the other survives._

There cannot be two Dark Lords.

Voldemort decides then and there that he will be the victor.

" _I_  am Voldemort," his Other self says, perhaps catching the flavor of that last thought. "You are a copy. A piece that I may reclaim at any time."

Nevertheless, his Other presents him with round wire-rimmed spectacles, and a wand that feels like  _his_ , yet is not.

"The same phoenix…" he murmurs, rolling the length of wood in his hands.

Without needing to speak, they agree that he will choose a new name for himself. There cannot be two Voldemorts, neither of them will allow it, and he is certainly not going to be Tom or Harry, at least not in his thoughts. Not when a ruse is unnecessary.

He claims the name Salazar, and it is a promise and a warning. He is the Heir of Slytherin. He is the Heir of Voldemort, for he  _is_  Voldemort, whatever his Other tells himself, and more.

It is an acknowledgement. They know they cannot trust each other, and yet the time has not come. It is not yet right. It will come, but it is not  _now_.

No, now they watch each other as two serpents vying for space in the sun, and they decide that Salazar will pretend to escape, and will pose as Harry Potter, and so conquer the Order of the Phoenix from within. It is a delicious twist, a complexity of plot that they have always enjoyed.

"Seem the innocent flower, but be the serpent beneath it," Voldemort quotes with a smile. And Salazar knows he is relishing this small confidence, this tiny shared moment in which he has revealed a knowledge of Muggle literature that would be anathema among the Death Eaters, simple fools that they are.

"By the pricking of my thumbs," Salazar replies, a grin like a knife curving his lips. "Something wicked this way comes."

When they part ways, Salazar knows that he is lying, that he is even now plotting to use the Order to depose his Other self and take his rightful place as leader of the wizarding world. But he is not certain if Voldemort knows, if he is even aware, if he has made the leap of logic, deduced the true meaning of the prophecy.

Salazar takes it as a sign that he is superior. That he will triumph.

When the portkey dumps Salazar in the middle of the Hogwarts grounds, he is immediately set upon by a crowd of weeping well-wishers. He recites a story about Barty Crouch Jr. being insane, thinking he could bring back the Dark Lord. It is the story that Voldemort and Salazar agreed should be told. Salazar is not yet sure enough of his power to openly defy Voldemort.

He knows that Dumbledore does not believe him.

**-l-**

The Dursleys are horrible.

Every night, Salazar plots ways to kill them. He is amazed they are still alive, that Harry Potter did not do away with them years ago. He is amazed that he does not unwittingly cause their deaths himself, in a bout of rage induced wandless magic.

But he mustn't kill them, because killing them will alienate all of the followers he hopes to cultivate, once he is invited into the inner sanctum of the Order of the Phoenix. Every day he scans  _The Daily Prophet_  for news, and writes letters to various Order members. They have not yet mobilized, for they don't know that Voldemort has risen again, but Salazar will make it known to them soon enough. Once he has cemented in their minds that he is indispensable, that he must be protected and obeyed at all costs.

He is their only hope.

He is their messiah.

It is a part he knows how to play. A role he is familiar with.

It amuses him, how similar the Order of the Phoenix is to his ( _no, not his, they are not his any longer_ ) Death Eaters. They do not see what is so simple to him. All causes are just words, phrases used to sway those too stupid to understand the real truth. The only cause with any meaning is ambition. The only quest worth pursuing is for power.

The shrewdest of Salazar's correspondents is the Mudblood. It galls him, for he has always despised everything Muggle. Reviled them as he reviles the father they remind him of. And yet, Hermione is as much proof as he is, as Severus is, that genius is not a matter of bloodline. None of them are Purebloods, but they are all the greatest of their respective ages.

Salazar contemplates giving Hermione to Severus. Salazar genuinely enjoys the company of few beings, but Severus is one of them, and it would be a shame to lose him to Voldemort. With Hermione as an incentive, perhaps Severus can be persuaded to Salazar's cause…

Salazar's quill scratches across the page, leaving a jagged trail of ink. The Muggles are shouting again, and now there is a banging on his door. A bluster of threats, a new list of chores, a red faced Uncle Vernon and a hammy fist raised, and Salazar decides that enough is enough.

 _I will call and they will come. I will call, and they will answer. I will call, and they will slither into your beds in the night, and you will not live to greet the dawn_ , he says in Parseltongue, taking great pleasure in Uncle Vernon's paling face.

The fear he sees there makes his heart beat faster, makes his breath quicken and his blood rush in his veins. In moments like these, he feels truly alive. He has never been able to achieve this feeling any other way.

The weak of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure. All of life is a most dangerous game.

"What was th-that?" Uncle Vernon stutters, trying to be commanding, but only looking small and afraid. Salazar can see Dudley and Petunia peeking over his shoulders.

"Have I never mentioned?" Salazar flashes a charming smile that only unnerves them more. "I can talk to snakes."

"The python! At the zoo!" Dudley squeaks. "On my birthday!"

Salazar has no idea what Dudley is referring to, so he says only, "Yes."

Petunia begins to cry and Salazar is fascinated by her tears. "It almost killed him!"

"Yes," Salazar says again.

Vernon opens his mouth to speak, but then he changes his mind. His eyes bug out, and his face goes through a whole range of colors, and then he backs out of the doorway, pushing Petunia and Dudley with him, and shuts the door with a quiet  _click_.

Salazar looks down and sees that he is very obviously aroused.

He masturbates to thoughts of writhing snakes and vengeance served, and when he comes, he imagines it is on Petunia's corpse.

**-l-**

From that day on, the Dursleys grow quiet whenever Salazar enters a room, and it takes only one hissed word of Parseltongue for them to grant him whatever concession he wishes.  
He controls them through their fear.

He grows to like Petunia's cooking, and finds Dudley to be a decent errand boy, if somewhat dull witted. Vernon drives him about the town, for Harry Potter does not yet have an apparition license, to Salazar's disgust, and his one thoughtless spell resulted in a letter from the Wizengamot about underage magic prohibitions.

He has never had Muggle servants before, and he finds he quite likes it. So long as the Dursleys remain useful, Salazar will let them live.

**-l-**

When Salazar grows tired of having to wear glasses, he writes a letter to the Ministry requesting a special Floo connection, and makes Vernon sign it. The next day, the Ministry is falling all over themselves to help Harry Potter, and they are so  _sorry_  about the trauma of the Triwizard Tournament, and wasn't it just  _awful_  that Cedric Diggory died?

Salazar makes the correct comments to the Ministry wizards, and suspects that the reason he received such a swift response is because of Death Eaters working within the bureaucracy.  
Voldemort does not yet suspect that Salazar is going to kill him, then.

Good.

Salazar makes Petunia accompany him to St. Mungo's. She is better behaved than Vernon, and he does not wish to have to punish his Muggles for causing a scene.

Petunia is nervous, and afraid, and utterly dependent upon Salazar when they step into the wizarding world.

He revels in it.

Making quick arrangements to have his vision magically corrected, he gets Petunia to sign the parchments granting her consent as his guardian, a little amused smile on his lips. The procedure is very expensive, for the spells are complex and difficult, and must be cast in tandem by two Master Healers.

Salazar asks if he may pay with Muggle money, and then gestures to Petunia to take care of it.

For a split second, she looks like she might dare to disagree with him, but he gives her a hard stare and she collapses in on herself, wilting like a flower in winter.

Salazar goes to have his treatment, and emerges with perfect vision.

He keeps his glasses. As soon as he is able, he will charm them to be window glass, and perhaps experiment with spells to let him see things that are hidden.

**-l-**

"Are we going home now?" Petunia asks him in a tremulous voice once they are back in the hospital's Floo atrium.

"No," he tells her, and enjoys her apprehension.

Taking her hand, because it is necessary and because he knows it bothers her, Salazar guides Petunia into one of the many fireplaces. Tossing down a handful of Floo powder, he calls out, "Diagon Alley!"

There is the familiar whirling sensation, and then they are stepping out of the grate in The Leaky Cauldron, and Salazar has to hold himself back, force himself to walk to the entrance to Diagon Alley, because somehow it feels as if he is seeing it all for the first time.

He remembers his wonder, the feel of his heart pounding as he realized that  _this_  is his world,  _this_  is where he belongs. Not in some grubby orphanage among Muggles, living an ordinary life full of ordinary things. He is destined for greatness.

And he will accept no less.

Threading Petunia's arm through his, he takes her first to Flourish & Blotts, conscious that he should make this look like a regular outing in order to avoid suspicion. He is certain that he is being watched, by Death Eaters and Order members both.

So he purchases his school books, and Petunia smiles gratefully at him when he does not make her pay for them. He returns her smile, to show her that he can be a kind master, so long as she obeys.

Next is Madam Malkin's, where Salazar orders tailored robes and suits in whatever style is considered fashionable for wizards his apparent age. Petunia seems to enjoy this, for she perks up and makes suggestions about color, and fusses over him in an almost maternal way. Salazar allows it because it bolsters his ruse. He lets her see that this pleases him.

She tells him that he should wear green because it will bring out his eyes, and Salazar happily acquiesces.

They go next to the apothecary, and Salazar acquires what he will need for Hogwarts, as well as a few items a lad of his age should not know how to use. The potioneer at the counter gives him an odd look, but Salazar turns on the charm and starts babbling at her about how he so looks up to Professor Snape, and he's hoping to convince the professor to oversee a private project when the school year starts.

The woman is clearly enthused at the idea of Harry Potter joining her profession.

Salazar gives Petunia his purchases to carry, and makes her wait outside when he goes in Ollivander's.

The memories his older self – Voldemort – shared with him of what happens when their wands are turned upon one another have been weighing on his mind.

"The dual cores…" Ollivander mumbles when Salazar questions him about it.

At the end of their conversation, Salazar randomly selects a wand from a nearby shelf, and uses it to cast a Memory Charm on Ollivander, erasing their entire conversation from the old man's mind. Hopefully the wand being unregistered will make the Ministry assume that the magic was merely the result of a child shopping for their first wand.

Salazar leaves Ollivander's knowing much more about wand lore, and believing in the Deathly Hallows.

**-l-**

When Harry Potter's fifteenth birthday arrives, Salazar receives many gifts and well wishes from his various correspondents. Hermione, delighted in his newfound devotion to academia in the wake of his 'near death experience,' sends him a book about wand lore. He has been probing her mind about it ever since his conversation with Ollivander.

Ronald sends him a package of pies baked by his mother, a wonkily knitted sweater that Salazar vows he will never wear, and a stack of Chocolate Frog Cards.

The gifts from Fred and George are more satisfactory – samples of their latest experimental wares. Salazar is quite pleased with the Weasley twins, and plans to groom them as lieutenants for the Order of the Phoenix ( _which will soon answer to him, and him alone_ ).

From Charlie there are fragments of a recently hatched dragon egg, and Bill sends a detailed sketch of a cursed tomb that he knows Salazar will find interesting. Hagrid's gift is a hand drawn certificate, promising Salazar an in depth tour of the Forbidden Forest.

Fleur Delacour, Viktor Krum, Cho Chang, and Astoria Greengrass, among others he is cultivating alliances with, send him a host of letters and cards, signaling that his plans to amass a force to rival Voldemort's are moving along well.

But the gift that brings Salazar the most pleasure comes from Luna Lovegood.

It takes two owls to carry it through his window – a small crate with air holes. The attached note reads:

_Dear Harry,_

Daddy found the egg while we were on holiday looking for proof of the existence of Crumple Horned Snorcacks. Once she hatched, something told me that you were meant to have her.

Hope you are well.

Your friend,

Luna Lovegood

When Salazar opens the box, he finds what he thinks are three tiny serpents all coiled together. Then the red-orange and black snake unwinds herself, and Salazar realizes that she is a Runespoor – a magical snake with three heads.

He must admit that he has missed Nagini. Harry Potter's owl familiar, Hedwig, is useful, but she cannot speak to Salazar, and she treats him with indifference, as if she senses that he is not her true master.

But this little Runespoor looks upon him with cold-blooded devotion. Salazar allows her to slide around his wrist, and hisses,  _Hello, little one_.

 _A Parsselmouth. Exxcceellent_ , says the left head.

 _I have imagined thissss_ , adds the middle head.

 _Not impressssed_ , sniffs the right, their words tumbling over one another in a raspy chorus.

Salazar names her Euryale , and goes down to his birthday dinner with her draped on his shoulders.

The Dursleys are on their best behavior.

**-l-**

When the time has come for Salazar to return to Hogwarts, he places runes about the house on Privet Drive, telling the Dursleys that he can see them even when he is not there, and will know if they betray him.

He is lying, but they are too ignorant to know it.

Then he Floos to King's Cross, and presents the world with the new Harry Potter.

It is fortunate, he reflects, that the Diggory boy died, for all the changes in 'Harry Potter's' demeanor are put down to witnessing such a violent murder.

"Harry, you look nice!" Hermione gushes. "Ron, doesn't Harry look nice?"

"Er, what?" Ronald gapes. He is far too involved in staring at Euryale (she is wrapped loosely around Salazar's throat, and sleeping, almost blending in with his Gryffindor tie) to notice Salazar's clothes. "What's with the snake, mate?"

"That's a Runespoor!" Hermione pales even as a mad gleam of curiosity flares to life in her eyes. "They're associated with Dark Wizards, Harry."

Salazar gives an elegant shrug, the motion waking Euryale from her nap. The left head fixes Hermione with a beady stare, the middle head yawns, and the right head lets out a low hiss.

"Birthday gift from Luna," Salazar says, as if that explains everything. "And besides, Hermione," he continues with a bright grin, "I am a Parselmouth. Why shouldn't I have a pet I can talk to?"

Ronald shakes his head. "They're going to be calling you the Heir of Slytherin again."

"Let them," Salazar responds in what he hopes is an appropriately devil-may-care, Gryffindor fashion. He cares not what these children say, especially when their words are true.

He is boarding the train when a white haired boy muscles past him. "Watch it, Malfoy!" Ronald snaps.

The blonde boy turns, and Salazar is faced with what could have been Lucius Malfoy if this were twenty years ago. "Potter," Draco Malfoy snaps, bitter anger in every line of his body.

"Draco," Salazar answers, coolly polite. "How are Lucius and Narcissa? And have you…" Salazar hesitates, not wanting to broadcast his interest, but in the end his desire to know is greater than his sense of caution. "Have you had any letters from Bellatrix?"

This seems to unnerve the Malfoy boy completely. He blanches and storms off without saying anything else.

"Bloody hell," Ronald comments.

Indeed.

**-l-**

When they have settled themselves in their compartment, Salazar takes the time to discreetly look through Hermione's memories, pulling the details he will need to believably impersonate Harry Potter from her mind. With Ronald he is less subtle, doubting the boy would notice if there was an Erumpent blundering through his thoughts.

He is enraged and amused by turns to find that Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the wizard who foiled Voldemort on more than one occasion, was nothing more than a lucky child.

It cements in his mind that the prophecy always referred to him. Salazar. Voldemort's Horcrux.

The true Dark Lord.

The compartment door slides open, and Ginevra Weasley asks if she can join them. With her is a youth Salazar does not recognize, presumably her beau.

Salazar is curious about this Weasley, for she is one of the only two he has never corresponded with. He looks into Ginevra's eyes.

There is a path in her mind, left there just for him. An imprint of self, a bloody red carpet leading the way to the darkest shadows. She buries the memories of Tom Riddle's diary deep, holds them to her soul, but Salazar knows, he can tell, that she is like Bellatrix.

She loves him, she  _loves_  him, and cannot seem to help herself. She runs from it, hides from it, would deny it if she ever heard it said out loud, but Salazar  _knows_. Ginevra has always been drawn to Harry Potter, but she hasn't guessed, she can't know that it was  _him_  she was sensing.

_Ginevra._

His faithful Bellatrix is likely lost to him now – for she will not see that Salazar is every bit as much her Dark Lord as Voldemort is. She will suspect trickery.

But that is fine, for Salazar shall have a new most loyal.

"Sit by me, Ginny," he says, offering her a Pumpkin Pasty.

**-l-**

Salazar spends the majority of his time in the library, researching the Deathly Hallows, and trying to trace the Elder Wand to its current owner.

When Dolores Umbridge disbands the Quidditch teams and makes a point of telling Harry Potter that he will not be allowed to play, Salazar does not mind. It saves him from having to make excuses as to why he is no longer interested in pursuing the sport. He has much better things to do.

When Hermione protests that they are learning absolutely nothing in their Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and suggests that Salazar give lessons in secret, he tells her that she is brilliant and leaves the arrangements in her very capable hands. To be the one to impart such knowledge, to be seen as having leadership offered to him, rather than taking it… it will bind his followers all the closer.

And furthermore, he suspects that Hermione is right. Umbridge is likely working under a directive to keep them from becoming dangerous.

Hermione suggests that their first meeting take place in The Hog's Head, but Salazar overrules her. He knows that Aberforth Dumbledore runs that pub, and likely spies for his brother.  
They meet instead in the Room of Requirement, and Salazar gives a rousing speech. Later, Ginevra will tell him that he was inspiring.

Teaching the first lesson is delicious, and Salazar is vindicated in the curse he placed on the DADA teaching position. Dumbledore is an old fool not to have hired Salazar when he applied for the position all those years ago. Under his tutelage, these children will become duelists to be feared. Ginevra in particular has a talent for the nastier hexes, to rival even Bellatrix.

At the end of the lesson, Salazar has them all present their right arms. There, on their wrists, he brands them with a stylized phoenix, wings aflame, holding a snake in its talons.

Luna drew it for him.

"Ow!"

"Hey!"

"You've got some nerve!"

"What the hell?!"

"Harry, I thought we were going to use coins – " Hermione begins.

Salazar holds up a hand, calling for silence.

"This is better. You can lose a coin. And this is important. Now you all bear the Mark of the Phoenix. You have chosen a side." He looks from face to face, lingering just long enough to make each person there feel that he speaks directly to them, and meeting the eyes of the most obstinate so that he might push their minds toward acceptance through the judicious use of Legilimency. "I am here to tell you that Voldemort is coming back. His followers already work within the Ministry. We have to be ready to fight.

"The Dark Lord marks his followers with an image of death. Now I have marked mine with a vision of hope. I am the Phoenix. You are my Order. I have lived through the Killing Curse. The wizarding world has risen from the ashes of war. And I say that I can do it again! That  _we_ will do it again!"

Salazar raises his fist, and the crowd mimics him, their new Marks stark against their skin. "We are the Order of the Phoenix!"

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!" they cheer, thirty voices joined as one.

**-l-**

Salazar does not dream of his Other self often. Voldemort is too skilled in Occlumency for that. But occasionally, things slip through.

That is how Salazar becomes aware that Voldemort is seeking a copy of the prophecy concerning them. That he is beginning to suspect that the prophecy has never been about Harry Potter at all.  
There is a nice symmetry to it, that Voldemort is the father of his own downfall. If he had not attacked Harry Potter that night, then Salazar would never have existed.

It's positively Shakespearean.

Salazar shares this observation with Hermione. He knows she will appreciate it, and be flattered by his attention.

She is brilliant, but oh so easy to manipulate. Which of course, makes it simple to convince her to help him forge Ministry documents saying that the record of the prophecy concerning Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort is to be destroyed.

He gives the forged parchments to Susan Bones, with orders to pass them on to her aunt, the Head of Magical Law Enforcement in the Ministry.

Within a month, he has received confirmation of the prophecy's destruction, and dreamt of Voldemort's frustrated rage.

The battle lines have been drawn.

**-l-**

When Umbridge forces her way into the Room of Requirement during one of the Order's meetings, she and her little band of hooligans are seriously outmatched. With Salazar's guidance, the Order has become an army.

The intruders are bound and gagged. Salazar asks the crowd what they think should be done and listens to shouted suggestions made with varying degrees of bloodthirstiness. Luna balks, being one of his gentler followers, but Salazar reminds her that it is for the greater good.

In the end, they force Draco Malfoy to take the Mark of the Phoenix, thus claiming one of Voldemort's pawns.

The rest they obliviate, stun, and levitate to a clearing in the Forbidden Forest.

Salazar waits until all but Ginevra have left. At her nod, he casts the Killing Curse on the prone bodies of the Inquisitorial Squad, and then points his wand upward to shoot the Dark Mark into the sky.

"It's for the greater good," he whispers in her ear just before she kisses him. She is crying, but trying valiantly not to.

He fucks her against a tree.

**-l-**

Things move swiftly after that. The adult members of the Order assemble, and Salazar is invited to the Order's headquarters at 12 Grimmauld Place. There, he begins the vital work of making them see him as more than a precocious child chosen by fate. He is their rightful leader – a wizard of power and intelligence whom they must obey if they are to have any hope of defeating Voldemort.

Molly Weasley is his greatest opponent. She wants him to have a childhood, she says. In the end, he commands her to look into his eyes.

"I haven't been a child for a very long time," he tells her, silently casting the Imperius Curse.

Her mouth goes slack for a moment, and then she sighs. "Yes, Harry. You're right."

Dumbledore is conspicuously absent from the Order meetings, but Salazar considers that to be to the good. It makes it easy for him to step into the void.

And he has never been able to fool Dumbledore.

They are too alike.

**-l-**

By the time summer rolls around, he has the Order well in hand, and he is working on swaying Snape to his side. But still, he is careful to entrust his most important plans only to a select few.

Ronald and Hermione will accompany him in the summer months to destroy Voldemort's other Horcruxes. Salazar knows where all of them are, and will not risk any of them taking a body and rising against him, as he has done with Voldemort.

He will regret Nagini, but Euryale revels in the python's death, for she is jealous of Salazar's attentions, and feels she should be the only serpent to grace his life.

Ginevra will stay behind with the Order, to lead in his place and act as his eyes and ears. Her word is to be taken as his own, for she is utterly devoted to him, and he rewards that devotion with power.

Once the Horcruxes have been dispatched, Salazar will turn his attentions to the Deathly Hallows. He has come to think that he already has the cloak, for surely the one in Harry Potter's possession can be nothing else, but he will need the Elder Wand in order to defeat Voldemort.

The Resurrection Stone is incidental, interesting to him only as an object of power. He has no real use for it. ( _Except perhaps to speak with his mother_.)

When he is ready, when he is truly the Master of Death, he will confront Voldemort. And he will win. He will be hailed as a hero, the child of prophecy. The Boy Who Lived.

The Phoenix.

The Savior.

 _And_ , he will whisper quietly to himself,  _the Heir_.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: #9 During one of Harry's canon misadventures, Severus (or whoever's there at the time) is just a moment too late, and Harry dies...and the fragment of Tom takes over. But everyone assumes Harry survived.
> 
> The lines of Shakespeare quoted by Voldemort and Salazar: Both lines are references to MacBeth.
> 
> The weak were put on the world to give the strong pleasure: Reference to The Most Dangerous Game.
> 
> Euryale: One of the Gorgons of Greek Myth. Pronounced 'Ur-RHYE-ah-lee.'
> 
> The title, "The Heir of…" is deliberate, because Salazar is the heir of several different people. Most readers, I think, will catch on that he is the Heir of Slytherin and the Heir of Voldemort. More discerning readers will also see that he is the Heir of Harry Potter, in that he takes on his role and legacy, and the Heir of Dumbledore, in that he takes Dumbledore's place as leader of the Order of the Phoenix. This is also a hint as to his future.
> 
> Voldemort's Motive: It has been pointed out to me by one of the people who read this prior to posting, that Voldemort's motive for letting Salazar go free as long as he did is not clear. So let me clear that up: I have always seen Voldemort's downfall as being a result of his own arrogance – his belief that no one could be as clever as him, and no one's magic could be more powerful. That is why he lets Salazar go. He knows that he will have to kill Salazar at some point, but he arrogantly believes that Salazar is lesser, because he is a horcrux, and that Salazar can't possibly succeed in supplanting him. But, as Salazar essentially is Voldemort, he has the same flaw, and thus doesn't notice it in his opponent. That is why it is not specifically mentioned in the story – Salazar doesn't recognize Voldemort's arrogance. He thinks he is being left alone because Voldemort believes he is loyal.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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